By: Chuck Miller
Color infrared film photography, nikon, Photography

Let the 2024 Competition Season begin!!

Long-time readers of my blog will instinctively know that the warm weather brings the beginning of what I call “Competition Season.”

Competition Season, for me, means that I look over all the photos I’ve recently taken, and determine which ones will appear in any one of five different events – the photography shows at the Iowa State Fair, at the New York State Fair, at the Altamont Fair, at the Big E in Massachusetts, and at the Durham Fair in Connecticut.

Last year wasn’t my greatest run at Competition Season – I didn’t enter Durham due to weather concerns, and many of the other competitions either didn’t medal, or I didn’t feel that my entries had the proper oomph of past years.

And getting photos together for Competition Season 2024 has been hampered by my recent personal surgeries, which kept me away from my cameras for a very long time.

But now I seem to be making up for lost time photography-wise, putting together entries that will definitely fit in the “short pile” for this year’s submissions. In fact … here’s a gallery of possible submissions for this year’s run.

  • Be pRepaired. Nikon Df camera, Nikkor medical 120mm f/4 lens, 70 images combined in focus stack. Photo (c) 2024 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • How God Sees an Eclipse. Nikon Df camera, Matusov 1100mm lens with Thousand Oaks filter. Photo (c) 2024 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • Le Pont Percy Bridge. Nikon Df camera, Vivitar 19mm f/3.8 lens. Photo (c) 2023 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • Tick Tock Symphonette. Nikon Df camera, Nikkor Medical 120mm f/4 lens, ISO 200, 1:1 magnification, 25 images combined in photo stack. Photo (c) 2024 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • Shoot Him on the Spoot. Nikon Df camera, Nikkor medical 120mm f/4 lens. Photo (c) 2024 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • CPKC Holiday Train passing old D&H Building. Google Pixel 6 Pro camera. Photo (c) 2023 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • First Race Winner. Nikon Df camera, modified for infrared, with Kolari infrared filter. Photo (c) 2023 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.
  • One Eclipse Over Texas. Google Pixel 6 camera phone. (c) 2023 Chuck Miller, all rights reserved.

And now comes news that two of my five competitions – the Iowa State Fair and the Altamont Fair – have opened their premium books for entries. Here’s the entry page for the Iowa State Fair; and the Altamont Fair PDF premium book can be found here.

And honestly … I’m not done yet. I still have a couple of photo projects that could get added to this mix.

For me, this is another step towards normalcy. Between a mix of home-created shots and road trip photos … and getting back to using my cameras again … this is the best medicine I could ever take.

Let’s go from here. Competition Season is now underrway.

And let’s get those entries in.

No settling for “just good enough.”

Let’s make this work.